FIU Students Disciplined Over Racist, Violent Group Chat Tell Federal Judge the Messages Were Jokes Protected by the First Amendment

Four Florida International University students who were expelled or suspended over racist, antisemitic and violent messages in private group chats are asking a federal judge in Miami to rule that the university violated their First Amendment rights. In a two-day trial that began Wednesday, Oct. 28, one of them testified that even messages about beheading Black people were meant as humor.

Chief U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga of the Southern District of Florida is hearing the case without a jury and will decide it herself. The second and final day of testimony began Thursday morning, and it was unclear whether she would rule from the bench, WSVN reported.

The case tests how far a public university in Florida can go in punishing students for offensive speech in private, off-campus conversations, a question the judge has already said cuts in both directions.

Who is suing and how they were punished

The plaintiffs, named in court filings and news coverage, are Abel Carvajal, Dariel Gonzalez, Ethan Ratchkauskas and Dante Mojena. Their lawsuit names FIU President Jeanette Nuñez over her role in the disciplinary process. According to the Tampa Bay Times, the sanctions break down this way:

The students are seeking relief from the sanctions and other remedies for what they allege were constitutional violations. Their attorney, Anthony Sabatini, has represented them in the federal case.

What the chats contained

The Miami Herald obtained and published excerpts of the WhatsApp chats in March. Over two weeks of chat logs from September and October 2025, participants used variations of the N-word more than 400 times, described women with slurs, used slurs about Jewish and gay people and mused about Hitler's politics, the Herald reported, according to WSVN. One member described the conversation as "Nazi heaven," WSVN reported.

The chats also included messages about killing communists and racial and religious minorities, as well as talk of drunk driving and drug use, the Times reported. Carvajal, who started the chat in fall 2025, was then secretary of the Miami-Dade County Republican Party, a post he later resigned. The chat also included the president of FIU's Turning Point USA chapter and a former College Republicans recruitment chair, according to WSVN.

The students' testimony: "edgy humor"

Gonzalez, 24, a political science student expelled in July, testified Wednesday that the chats were made up of friends with similar political views and a taste for offensive internet humor. Asked whether a message advocating beheading someone because of their race was funny, he answered, "In this context, yes," the Times reported.

"If you just see this by itself, then yeah, it looks horrible," Gonzalez said. "But if you see it within the context, it's perfectly fine." He described his replies as "provocative humor, which is edgy humor," and said accounts in the chat of drunk driving a golf cart and smoking marijuana on campus were made up for comic effect. FIU's attorney confronted him with messages describing that conduct, which the university treated as disciplinary violations.

Gonzalez acknowledged that members had discussed the chats leaking and hurting their political futures, and that a Black female student who had been in the chat later filed a complaint accusing him of harassment or discrimination. He denied threatening or harassing her.

Carvajal testified that he did not find every message funny but understood them as attempts at humor. He called a message about killing communists "political hyperbole to the max," and said the group's fears about exposure were political, not criminal. He said he is six credits short of finishing law school after failing a course, which he attributed to the stress of the proceedings.

Evron, who represented Ratchkauskas and Mojena in FIU's disciplinary process, testified that she saw the university's early meetings with the students as damage control focused on its reputation, though she acknowledged officials never said they were punishing the students for reputational harm.

FIU's case: threats and disruption

FIU argues that it disciplined the students for threatening language and its effect on campus, not for their political beliefs. In court filings, the university said it received more than 60 incident reports after the messages became public, including from students who feared for their safety or felt uncomfortable going to class, and that it added campus police patrols and met with student organizations, according to the Times.

The university also cited reports from professors about students struggling to concentrate and testimony from a Black female law student who described persistent anxiety about attending classes. The students counter that the messages were not true threats and did not cause the kind of substantial disruption that could justify punishing protected speech. Gonzalez testified that his classes went on normally.

How the case reached trial

The students originally asked the court to halt FIU's investigation, but Altonaga paused the case so the university could finish its disciplinary process, according to the USA TODAY Network. In a 22-page order on Sept. 14, she allowed First Amendment claims against Nuñez to proceed while dismissing an attempt to sue Nuñez in her personal capacity and a separate due process claim tied to a driving-under-the-influence charge.

Evaluating Gonzalez's claim, Altonaga wrote that "these remarks" described as offensive "are precisely the kind of subject matter protected by the First Amendment." She also acknowledged that a school can regulate student speech that disrupts classwork or causes "substantial disorder," while noting that a school's "regulatory interests are diminished" for off-campus speech, especially political or religious expression. Sabatini called that order a "huge win."

Political reaction

The Republican Party of Florida said in a statement that it "consistently stands against racism, antisemitism and bigotry in all its hateful forms of expression," WSVN reported. Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Reed said, "Reading words filled with such extreme hate and rhetoric made me feel physically ill."

What's next

Altonaga will decide whether FIU had the legal authority to discipline the students for messages in a private chat, or whether the sanctions crossed the constitutional limits on a public university's power to regulate expression. A ruling could come at the close of testimony or in a written order later. Either side could appeal to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.